Independence Day Reading

by Dick Mac

There are some pieces of writing, documents, that have dramatically changed the course of civilization. One of my faves, and one that seems to have fallen out of favor in the past decade, is the Bill of Rights. Guaranteeing these fundamental rights is what made the formation of the United States so unique.

Bill of Rights

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Our founding fathers instructed us to meet regularly in Constitutional Conventions to address these and other rights, and to ensure that our government was functioning properly. You need not be a right-winger or a left-winger, or a dullard, to know that our government is broken. I believe our failure to convene Constitutional Conventions on a regular basis has led to this.

Now that a ruling class has been so firmly established for two centuries, and we are trapped in a single-party system, the notion of a Constitutional Convention seems quaint, and I fear would be ineffective. Still, the founding fathers had a great idea.

Other documents worth remembering or investigating are The Magna Carta, The United States Constitution, and The Manifesto of the Communist Party, among many others.

Documents like these are what shaped Western Civilization, for better or worse. If you haven't read them, or if it's been a while, I recommend them.

Bowie on Dick Cavett, 1974

by Dick Mac

In 1974, David Bowie appeared on the Dick Cavett show, and to this day explains that the event is barely a blur in his memory.

His performances on the show were brilliant were brilliant. In the video below, he and his amazing band (including Luther Vandross, David Sanborn, Carols Alomar and other young, soon-to-be-famous musicians) do a version of the very funky "1984" from the then-current "Diamond Dogs" record.

This video then cuts to a series of clips of Bowie fiddling with a cane, sniffling like a coke-head, and talking a-million-miles-an-hour. Do you remember those days?

This era was my favorite of Bowie's creative genius. I am a fan of the funk-filled "Diamond Dogs" and "Young Americans" records, and the coke-crazed "Station To Station" record. The music and lyrics are some of his best, and the bands he assembled in the mid-70s (including John Lennon during the added-on New York "Young Americans" sessions) were amazing.

The Dick Cavett interview is a classic, and I recommend you seek it out and watch it in its entirety.

"Ladies and gentlemen, yet another David Bowie":

Norm Coleman Loses

by Dick Mac

A sleaze-bucket is a bucket full of sleaze.

Keeping that in mind, I am thrilled that Norm Coleman lost the Senate race from the State of Minnesota.

After months of obstructing the constitutional process of the United States of America, sleaze-bucket Norm Coleman finally admitted that he had lost. Like a sleaze-bucket, he didn't concede because he lost, which had become crystal clear months ago when mathematics and election laws proved that Al Franken had beaten him. No! Like all Republican sleaze-buckets (not that all Republicans are sleaze-buckets, but those that are sleaze-buckets fit here), Coleman wasn't going to let anything like mathematics or law get in the way of his plans, he was going to have the highest courts he could reach (often filled with Republicans, sleaze-buckets or not) decide, hopefully ignoring the mathematics and laws.

Fortunately, the Minnesota Supreme Court would had had enough of the charade, and declared Al Franken the winner of the election. Coleman, in his concession, mentioned nothing about the votes of the citizenry, instead he discussed the courts:

Sure I wanted to win. I thought we had a better case. But the court has spoken.

Coleman, like a good sleaze-bag, did have a good case, but he had LOST the election; and fortunately the Court realized this was about an election, not a case to be made.

And, finally, Al Franken will be sworn-in as Senator from the State of Minnesota. Now the clowns in Washington will have a real comedian to contend with!

Defending the Indefensible DOMA

by Al Falafel

In recent years, several States have guaranteed gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry as a basic civil right."

Right off, I feel nauseous reading this opening volley in the current assault against the LGBT civil rights movement that comes by way of the Justice Department's Brief filed in a US District Court Case challenging the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act." It sickens me since I know where this is leading.

This is how you start an argument against same-sex marriage as a basic civil right?

It is the height of cynicism, worthy of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or George W. Himself, to assert that the issue at the bottom of all this is no issue at all - and never was.
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This business about "several States [having] guaranteed same-sex couples the freedom to marry" sets the disingenuous tone of this argument, which is carried through the entire brief:

"You uppity perverts should just shut the hell up and be grateful that a few backward states have so graciously - but wrongly - granted you the right to offend us 'real' Americans with your existence and to mock our real marriages-made-in-heaven with your godless fake ones!"

Such heartfelt sentiment was to be expected from the Bush Administration. But - appallingly - it seems to have spilled over into the allegedly gay-friendly Obama Justice Department.

It is, in fact, partly the work of one W. Scott Simpson, a Bush holdover (Mormon by coincidence?) who is named as Senior Trial Counsel on page 1 of the brief filed June 11, 2009.

Since that filing just weeks ago, other Repugnicans have used different language to convey the same sentiment and to advance the same political agenda. In Pennsylvania, for instance, State Sen. John Eichelberger (R. Bumphuk County), has introduced a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the commonwealth. When asked in an NPR interview if the state's only policy toward same-sex couples should be to punish them, Eichelberger relied on his Repugnican talking point cheat sheet to declare, "They're not being punished! WE'RE ALLOWING THEM TO EXIST," damn it!

No big surprise, perhaps, in the land of "man-on-dog" Santorum to hear a Repugnican saying such things out loud. But what the hell is the Obama Administration and a Democratic-controlled Justice Department doing using those same Repugnican talking points in a case against DOMA? Isn't this is one of the federal benchmarks of institutionalized homophobia that Obama vowed to use the full force of his office to repeal?

Fanning the embers of outrage over Obama's crass betrayal of his LGBT supporters on this key issue was the Administration's hurried response to the initial uproar that began to surround it. Disturbingly, any vocal criticism that may have caught any mainstream attention was quelled by deft political manipulation of the media by Obama's White House response team.

It is the tedious legal language of this motion that caused a few days delay before anybody who could digest it was able to convey how truly damaging it is to the struggle for LGBT civil rights. A few days was time enough, however, for Obama and his handlers to smack together a headline-grabbing proclamation of some "positive" crumb they could toss out there and distract their fuming LGBT constituency while at the same time not draw too much blow-back from the repugnant right. What they came up with and trotted out to sensational fanfare is Obama's decision to grant partners of LGBT federal employees spousal benefits!

Flash! Boom! Brilliant! Take a bow, Mr. President. A grateful queer nation thanks you for allowing us to exist in your government. Even the Repugnicans of today, having become inured to our existence on this planet, will raise no fuss since this small gesture is can just as easily be undone and is, afterall, clearly devoid of any meaning or substance.

The Fed's granting of spousal benefits is just mimicking what most private sector employers of any size have already been doing for decades. But it is actually less than that since it lacks the single most important measure granted by other employers - health insurance coverage! (I don't know what LGBT spouses do get out of the new acknowledgment of their existence - maybe an invitation to the annual employee picnic?)

But the maneuver worked. The media bought it, hook line and stinker! Nary a peep has been heard in the press about how the LGBT civil rights movement may be set back by decades if Obama allows the offensive action of his Justice Department to go forward and if it succeeds in supporting the constitutionality of DOMA. And now, if the straight majority catches any word about the LGBT population being at all upset with our liberal President then WE come off looking like a bunch of whiney ingrates!

There is so much wrong with this deeply offensive motion and the politics surrounding it. So much has been written about it already by legal scholars and critics, some of whom are ardent LGBT Obama supporters. If the President does not soon and strongly disavow it (preferably firing Simpson and Co. in the process) then we can only assume that this is where his true sentiments lie. Regardless of the elegant lip service he pays to us when he needs our votes we will have to see him as being no more enlightened than the most repugnant Bush Administration official.

How can we not feel as though we've been made fools of again?

The crass cynicism of the motion does not stop with opening clause, of course. It carries all through the long and twisted brief painting a background scenario of the issues in the dankest tradition of historical revisionism. Reading through the motion you are asked to suspend your disbelief and ignore the turbulent experience that brought us same-sex lovers to this contentious point in our long struggle for equal rights. You are, in effect, asked to swallow the fantastical idea that the State legislatures of this great nation have spent the last decade or so reasonably and civilly considering the idea of encoding same-sex marriage into their laws on a benevolent "experimental" basis.

In the Bizarro World scenario this brief draws, there have been no hard-fought civil rights trench battles - risen to the level of a "culture war" on "perversion" declared by opportunistic Religio-pugnicans in the 1980s; no ugly clashes between fag-hating religious groups and mourning families of AIDS casualties and gay-bashing victims have raged on the public stage for over forty years. We have not been oppressed by ignorance and hatred for centuries, nor have we ever been victims of mass extermination, violence, murder or often driven to suicide. We were never a people forced to suppress our deep personal identities and conform impossibly to societal roles enforced by the tyranny of majority (negative) opinion. And we are not now forced to accept an inferior legal status steeped in religious tradition and other irrational forms of prejudice.

We are, it seems, some new kind of life form the States only recently discovered and are allowing to exist to a certain extent. They mean us no harm. But they can't quite figure out how we could possibly fit in with them - the truly higher form of life that makes all the rules - without upsetting their whole world view and offending their sense of entitlement. They are willing to let some states "experiment" with guarantees of "freedom to marry as a basic civil right" - allowing us to exist - but only on a limited experimental basis.

Put another way, the sense of this brief in support of DOMA is that our benevolent state governments, in their wisdom, voluntarily looked down upon their citizenry and discovered that people were forming "nontraditional" relationships among themselves. The states apparently saw this and wondered how they could help us. Their approach was to be "cautious" so as to preserve the peace of the land by not upsetting those citizens who might not understand. A few states were chosen or volunteered to act as "laboratories" where the novel concept of tolerance would be tested using those poor misguided souls who wanted to "pretend-marry" each other (for goodness sakes!) as guinea pigs.

It is, in fact, only a deep but baseless sense of heterosexual entitlement that continues to deny homosexuals our rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as American citizens who happen to be gay. Homosexuals have always walked among the humans and homosexual activity was finally decriminalized in America in 2003. Homosexuals have always formed relationships among themselves but homosexuals in relationships today are still oppressed by the straight majority due to an assumed supremacy of those who claim to be purely heterosexual (such boasts of straight exclusivity is obviously part of the big lie perpetrated even by self-righteous closet cases who endorse it until caught having homosexual relations themselves).

After the opening clause, this is how that concept is introduced in the Justice Department's motion:

"Yet, as same-sex couples in these States have won what they understandably view as a vital personal right of surpassing importance to their happiness and well-being, other States have reaffirmed the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, an understanding held as a matter of profound moral and religious conviction by many of their citizens."

Since this is a case against the federal government, the Obama Feds are arguing that it should be dismissed on the grounds that the States, in taking on this "experiment in alternate forms of marriage," effectively relieved the federal government of any responsibility for its citizens in regard to marriage. It's the usual Repugnican cop-out, mouthed even by former VP Darth Cheney, that it should be up to the states to decide whether his lesbian daughter can have what he takes for granted as a non-lesbian everywhere across this country (think he really believes that?).

The most infuriating thing about all this is that the Feds did not HAVE to do or say anything concerning this case. Rather than going to the twisted disgusting lengths they did - later using the tired old repugnancy of equating homosexual activity to incest, bestiality and child abuse - they did not need to file a brief at all. The original case, Smelt & Hammer v. USA, is a very weak one. It was never our best chance to defeat DOMA and it will likely be thrown out of court on purely technical grounds.

The hearing for Obama's motion for dismissal of this suit is scheduled for August 3, 2009.

It can be withdrawn - and Obama should see to it. Pronto!

Jim Fouratt on The Colbert Report

by Dick Mac

Jim Fouratt is an inspiration. He has worked tirelessly in both the political and entertainment arenas for decades.

Jim was present at the Stonewall Riots forty years ago, and he continues to work for the rights of homosexuals, and all people.

The Colbert Report can be a tough forum in which to discuss progressive issues, and I am impressed that Jim took the opportunity to speak out. He does a fantastic job, and Colbert seems sincerely interested and supportive.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jim Fouratt
www.colbertnation.com
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Good work, Jim!